Philadelphia Phillies: (26-20; Leader)
Well, the Phillies became the first league champion to get held scoreless during a sweep. They will head to Florida to try to get someone to cross the plate. They’ve been held scoreless in 46 of the last 47 innings. They are the only first-place team in MLB history to have been swept scorelessly (is that a word?) by the last-place team (at the beginning of the series the Mets were last). Something’s amiss with them and I like it. But there should be a disclaimer, every year they slump in May-early June.
Josh Johnson will face Roy Halladay on Saturday.
Atlanta Braves: (25-22; -1.5)
The Braves took two of three from the Florida Marlins and will head home to face the Pittsburgh Pirates. Have you noticed that Kenshin Kawakami is 0-7 and the Braves have lost 7 of his 9 starts. It’s terrible luck for him that the only two starts that the Braves have won, they scored their runs after he left the game.
The Braves also signed a 30-year-old Cuban defector Yasser Gomez, a low-risk player (I’m not calling any 30-year-old a prospect) with international experience. The Braves will have to get him a visa to come to America, and then see if anything materializes from him. I see only a 6th outfielder at AA.
Florida Marlins: (24-24; -3)
The Marlins lost two of three to the Braves and will face the Phillies this weekend. They’ve actually turned over a bit of their bullpen in the last few days. They demoted Burke Badenhop, DFA’d Dan Meyer, and placed Reynel Pinto on the DL. They called up Jorge Sosa, Taylor Tankersley, and Jay Buente. Also they demoted bench player Bryan Peterson in favor Mike Lamb.
Washington Nationals: (24-24; -3)
The Nationals lost two of three to the San Francisco Giants, and it’s ironic that the one game they won, they gave Tim Lincecum his first loss. But the more interesting news it the approximate date that Stephen Strasburg will come to the nation’s capital. Mark it down, June 8-10 against the Pirates. Strasburg will have one last minor-league start this Saturday against the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees.
Weekly Stat: Runs Created over 27 outs (or RC27) is a stat used to measure what a lineup full of the same player would score in a game. The formula for it is too long for me to get into here, but it’s interesting that Josh Willingham leads the league in RC27 with 9.28
In fact, NL East players account for 6 of the top 10, including 1-4)
Jason Hayward is 2nd with 8.56; Jason Werth is 8.50; and Chase Utley is 8.33.
Adam Dunn and Dan Uggla are 9th and 10th with 7.66 and 7.38 respectively.
The highest Met on the leaderboard is Jason Bay at 15th with 7.03
